Kentucky CPS: What Merchants Need Heading into Spring 2015!

With 2015 in full swing, retailers should start thinking about the impact the new advances in 2015 will have on their in-store payments strategy. This is the year that will likely be one of the most pivotal years in the payments industry. New technologies, new players and new guidelines will all shape the way retailers accept electronic payments. Here are three important topics to consider when planning for 2015.

1. PCI 3.0

The current PCI 2.0 guidelines sunset on Dec 31, 2014 and will be replaced by PCI 3.0. PCI 3.0 isn’t a major overhaul vs the existing 2.0 guidelines, but it does add new items that businesses should consider and create a plan for solving. The main items to get in front of are:

Creating an inventory of hardware used to accept payment with serial numbers

Training cashiers to regularly inspect payment hardware to ensure they haven’t been replaced or tampered with

Maintain a list of all IT service providers, their level of PCI compliance and written agreement of their services

Document all information, so you can easily refer to it when time for your annual SAQ

Remember that filing PCI compliance is required annually, so if you filed under PCI 2.0 in May, 2014 you have until May, 2015 to file for PCI 3.0.

2. EMV

There have been a few recent blogs on the topic that you can reference here, here, and here, and with card brands estimating 50% of all cards in the US will be chip enabled by end of 2015 it’s important that any new hardware that you install is EMV ready. It’s also a good idea to consider customer experience, as EMV best practices means the cardholder is always in possession of their card. This means that the best experience is for customer facing EMV readers with user-interfaces that allows consumers to select what account they want to pay with.

3. Apple Pay, NFC and Mobile Payments

Speaking of consumer facing peripherals, with the success of Apple Pay what’s your plan to support mobile payment? Consumers aren’t going to want to hand their expensive smart phones to a cashier to execute payment, so positioning of your payment devices becomes more critical. The role of the consumer experience device becomes more important as people have new ways to pay and it’s important to choose a solution that has a clear user-interface and can advise customers on the options available for payment so they can use their preferred payment option.

Also remember that while the launch of Apple Pay is primarily NFC, there will be options for QR codes and in-app payments in the future for iPhone users and other wallet providers.

It’s a lot to consider going into 2015, but it’s also exciting times. With all the new technology don’t lose sight of potential data breaches, so make sure to partner with a payment provider that offers high security with a proven point-to-point encryption solution. A truly capable payment partner will handle the transaction for you in a secure manner, so you don’t have to think about it and focus on running your business.

If you are a local business that is trying to save money on processing or are interesting in the Clover, contact Kentucky CPS. Locally you can contact them at 270-303-4982.